+2 for Nurgle's Rot wording. Although what about changing it a little bit more, in a way that allows avoiding the awkward note about Terminator and Daemon Prince formations having Nurgle's Rot? (the upgrade would then become "All units in the formation gain Nurgle's Rot")

Quote:

It affects any enemy formation assaulting or assaulted by one or more formations containing units with Nurgle's Rot.

And it looks like Chosen don't have characters (or the option to get them) in either the BL or EC lists. I'll third removing the character for consistency's sake. 175 should still be a reasonable price for 4-strong Fearless Scouting marines. You might also create a unit "Plague Marine Chosen" the same way that the other Chaos lists have "Chaos Space Marine Chosen."

For the Chosen I'd been working from the World Eaters Chosen Retinue which is four World Eaters Chosen and a character upgrade. Scout is mentioned in the army list rather than the unit summary a la Red Corsairs as the unit summary sheets had been getting over-full. But that's just a layout issue.

Four DG Chosen for 175pt could work, but I'm slightly wary of being able to do straight swaps of non-scoring Plague Zombie Infestations for scoring Scouting Plague Marines for the same price.

Finally got my first games in with the DG this weekend. I got two games in and used two different lists. One was aimed at stress testing the Nurgling Swarm upgrade, and the other was aimed at the Nurgle's Rot upgrade. I'll post my thoughts and lists below:

This game was against the Ghazgkhull's list with lots of stompas and fighta bombas. Game 2-0 for DG getting Take & Hold and Defend the Flag. The nurgling Swarm upgrade is a pretty great one that fits well into the list. Nearly every formation w the add on benefited from them, especially the terminators after teleporting in. They're a gem in engagements, but it adds up when you give it to everything in the army that could take it. It was 250 pts of nurgling, which is another good formation, which this list often wishes it had. In the future, I will probably use this to buff infantry formations. It's almost a must take for the terminators if they'll be teleporting. However, for vehicles, it's nice to have, but not necessary.

This game was a rough match up against Cadians with Death Strikes, 2x basilisks, and 2x manticores. Given that level of damage distribution and the store closing, we had to call it, but it was a mercy to the DG at that point. There was only one or two assaults, and the enemy formation was cleaned out on one, and it didn't have much effect on the other. The gun line approach of the Cadians kept the slow moving DG at Bay and liked the assaults.

In the first game, Rot had a little bit of an impact from the Prince and Terminators. Most notably, a lone gunwagon fleeing an engagement was struck down when the Rot took effect. Over all, a very fluffy rule that I'm not sure I would pay even 25 pts for. In this list, I think it creates too much bloat when used in mass. I could see it competing with chaos spawn as a cheap pts filler upgrade. Rot on the Prince really adds to his metric value since having that ability essentially accounts for half his upgrade of 50 pts.

Other thoughts on the list:- I think the list is capturing the feel and fluff of DG very well. It really does feel like tough trudging infantry that have chaos' blessing because of things like blight drones, Rot, and nurglings. - There are some inherent issues though with a bulk of small, slow, expensive formations. Again, that's what captures the DG feel, but right now I don't think I'd categorize this as an "easy" list to play. Not that this is a bad thing by any means. I felt this was especially exposed against the Cadians gun line. Having a plague ship would have helped from a list building perspective.- Defilers are a tough choice to include after a couple games with them (for all chaos, not just DG.) For 275 pts, they're a glass cannon that can break and be killed pretty easily. I think the shorter range of the Plague Hulk adds to this. The general idea was agreed with by a couple other players from the club who use chaos. Will probably swap in a Fester Titan for those points and see how that runs instead. The two AA shots from the Desecrator are really nice though. I could see using it as an add on for a Retinue or with a Plague Tower or Contagion Engines. - Having everything Fearless was great. It adds to the staying very well. No complaints about it from opponents. Or any other special rule for that matter. - The invulnerable save. Hmm. I feel that it adds more as an idea that as a roll. I did manage to roll a couple, but over all if I had to chose the save or be given a point reduction for formations, I'd take the points. - Blight Drones are fantastic. Tough enough, much needed mobility, and the ability to get a quick little punch against infantry formations. They especially excelled at moving up and firing, then supporting for a retained engagement. They were tougher, punchier, cooler landspeeders - Going forward, I want to try Contagion Engines and Fester titans in a list a little more well rounded rather than stress testing to get a better feel for the list in general.

Administrative- I think 4.3 is missing an entry for Chosen. - The entry for Plague Tower under Transports says that it can hold 16 GUOs, but also that GUOs also take up 2 spots. I think this is a typo.- Most importantly, tons of thanks to IJW for his continued work on this list. He's doing a great job, and while there's some aspects I think merit further discussion, he's doing a great job with staying involved and working to find that sweet spot between fluff and play.

Much appreciated! I finally have a game tonight so will have some notes from that later this week. Plus a proper reply to your feedback.

I've found the Defiler variants either work better as add-ons (Desecrators as dedicated AA on Retinues and Contagions, Plague Hulks on CC-weak formations like Vindicators) or as an all-Desecrator AA bubble of doom that can garrison. Although as a formation that gets them targeted very heavily.

Game ended in a win for DG. Went to points after turn 4, 1300-850. As noted, this was a tough game with no infantry to shoot at for the DG. Engagements became doubly important because it was really the only way to reliably do damage. The Contagion engines really struggled, but when the Plague Tower sustained, its out put was decent. Considering they're only a 25 pt difference, I'm not sure I'd choose the engines over the towers.

The terminators make a good BTS that even after breaking, stick around. By the end, the formation was down to one stand, but that was after an engagement and several rounds of firing.

This was my first time using the Fester titan and I really liked it. It adds a literal more maneuverability to the list. The 30cm shots mean you need to get pretty close, but the shots are worth it and the DC and void shields mean it has a little staying power.

Next time, I want to try an armored company upgraded to Land Raiders to pull in some strong dependable AT. It's 25 pts less than the Contagion engines, and while you loose the indirect, I think that AT shots have more value in the list.

I went 1-2 for the tournament. The match ups we're Knights, AMTL, and Baran Seigemasters with the win being over Seigemasters on turn 4. In general, I think my activations were too low since once formations started breaking, I had trouble applying pressure to objectives in the late game.

The game against the Knights was tricky, since my list didn't have a lot of AT fire. I still managed to put pressure on them, and lost 2-0 on turn three because I goofed and left a plague tower a couple centimeters too far from contesting an objective. If I had moved that proper, I think I would have been in a better position on Turn 4 to engage. Speaking of engagements, I had my full DP Retinue bounce off a prepped formation of paladins. Oh well.

The second game was AMTL, with similar problems as the Knight list regarding AT, but worse. With my disrupt fire, I was able to keep breaking formations, but couldn't finish many off. The game actually went to turn 5, where the final activation was me doubling onto an objective with my Plague Tower and Desecrator and planning on shooting off a three stand robot formation. I scored two hits and only needed one to fail their 6+ armor save to break them and claim a 1-0 victory with Take and Hold. Tim rolled great in the clutch, finding the box cars, and pushed the game to points, where he had a clean advantage.

The third game was a good match up for DG with the Seigemasters using lots of emplacements, and DG not caring because of their IC and disrupt weapons. They did have a Death Strike formation that made short work of my BTS Plague Tower, leaving a Desecrator to scurry away. The game ended, Turn 4 again, with a 1-0 victory to DG. There was one especially rough engagement where the DP Retinue (again) engaged a broken infantry formation, ended up going through THREE rounds of combat before losing and breaking. My DP may end up getting demoted to a Nurgling after those showings.

I also had a chance to play a game Friday night against Cadians and a mega battle Sunday involving 5 people and 6000 pts per side.

Over all, the DG offer a tough nut to crack. They're hard to get rid of with the fearless. However, the invulnerable save is a bit of a fluff addition. I think I'd still rather see a minor points reduction than everything have an IS. Opponents seemed to another have too many complaints about the list, other than when the IS would get hot. Dave, who played Knights, thought it felt similar to other Chaos with a bit more shooting and some flavorful specific units.

With some more activations, a little more AT, and a unit of Hellblades to CAP, this army has a lot of potential. Interestingly enough, another DG list ended up winning. That list went heavier with daemons, included Rhinos, and I believe left behind the Plague Ship and Plague Towers, working on 10 activations.

Hey JJ, the zombies come with the bombardment. At least that's how our group has read and played with them. You basically lose the flexibility for where and when the zombies show up via teleport, but gain a nice disrupt pie plate and no rolling for mishaps.

Had a chance to get a game in this weekend against Lost and the Damned. Man, that was a lot of massed infantry to work through. It was tough trying to break those large formations. It was a 4000 pt game and here was the list:

So 13 activations total. This gave me a slight edge since the LotD list was heavy on daemons and had 11 activations.

The Plague Towers were great, reigning damage from afar on the covens and clearing out units for the retinues to engage. The Titan did a similar job, although not quite as good, until it got jumped by a blood thirster and broke. The LotD Hellfire cannons were super strong, and helped to control the center of the board by unloading macro attacks on the land raiders and blight drones.

Highlights: killing off several characters, including the SC, using barrage. Zombie on zombie engagement. Three terminators failing all of their saves, but the sorcerer saving 12 hits through three rounds of combat to preserve the bts. He finally lost, but he won in spirit!

Game was called near the end of round three. DG was up 2-0 with Defend the Flag and They Shall Not Pass. LotD could have pushed for a turn four, but I think DG had the forces left to attrition out the weakened LotD forces with both Towers intact and a GUO romping around midfield, although the late game showing of the bloodthirster on my right flank was applying a lot of pressure.

Thanks to Karl for a great game, and hopefully we'll get a rematch at Fall In in November. If he has any comments to share, hopefully he'll drop by and add some from the other perspective.

Hi all, I'm finally back after some rather messy months, thanks for the feedback while I was away!

As before, I don't have massive amounts of time for games, but recently picking up the new Death Guard book for 40k has got me inspired again for the Epic list.

There are a whole bunch of new units in the Codex but the majority of them are covered adequately by existing units in the EpicEA list.

However what grabbed my attention was a unit regarding objectives, which lets Death Guard Troops choices (so Plague Marines, Plaguebearers, Nurglings, Poxwalkers/Plague Zombies and Cultists) still hold an objective even if they're outnumbered. Translating this into Epic Armageddon rules, I'm considering something like this, added to the Implacable Advance army rule:

'If an objective is being contested by both sides, it will be held by the Death Guard player unless the opponent has at least as many contesting units as the number of contesting Plague Marine and Plague Marine Havoc units.'

This represents the Plague Marines grinding forwards but never relinquishing ground they hold, and for me it helps counter the substantial twin disadvantages of not being able to March and having the reduced speed on the vehicles.

Most/all armies in 8th have a similar rule (at least I know that Space Marines and Chaos Marines have identical versions, and an FAQ early on gave a similar rule to Troop choices across the board in the Indexes). It seems to be something they've added to encourage people to take/use Troops in the edition that no longer forces their inclusion due to the Force Org charts. Probably not worth including in the Epic list.

Ah, I've not seen other codexes or that FAQ to know that it was a general thing.

I think something similar is still worth considering for both balance and 'feel', Implacable Advance in it's current form is a big disadvantage - getting +1 to Marshall has won me maybe one game, but not being able to March has definitely lost me multiple games...

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